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Have you ever experienced nodding off during TR0 ??

AngeloV

Gold Meritorious Patron
I took the comm course and pro TRs course in the late '70s and yes I nodded off during OT TR0, and TR0. After careful consideration I know why: I was bored out of my f-ing mind.
 

smartone

My Own Boss
Every time I did TR-0 the person's face whoever I twinned with changed into something horrific and ugly every time. Scared the shit out of me :omg:
 

OldTimingMan

Patron with Honors
The space in front of me would fade to black.

On some occasions my twin's face would take on a dark hairy and twisted aspect, colorless except for black, gray and white. Much like this image it appeared before me.

2d1wzmc.jpg


One new recruit reported a similar experience and asked me how he should respond.. when I said, in effect to embrace it, he turned white as a sheet, and never darkened the doorway of our Scientology establishment again.

Not joking
 

AnonyMary

Formerly Fooled - Finally Free
Memories.... wow! I did hundreds and hundreds of hours of TRs on multiple courses over the years. Especially back when on the Hard TRs course.. with blinkless TR 0. I am convinced that TR 0 ands OT TR 0 and have hypnotic effect. How else could they have gotten us to sit there and do those drills all the way through.
 

programmer_guy

True Ex-Scientologist
Have you ever experienced nodding off during TR0 ??

No, I never did.

But when I took the Comm Course I did probably have a little "trance state" experience on a few occasions.

Joanie Mongello (Comm Course sup and wife of the deputy ED) suggested that I had "went exterior".
With 20/20 hindsight I can say that Joanie was wrong.
 
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Stat

Gold Meritorious Patron
Personally, I don't think TR's/Comm Course or some such are hypnotically evil or what (I've done plenty of them over the years), even though how would I know if I was in a hypnotic trance or whatnot? Seriously though, neither sitting with your eyes closed and trying not to fall asleep nor staring at someone in front of you (and trying not to fall asleep, unless they are really pretty/handsome) seems that profound and dangerous for ones mental integrity. Or may be it's just me. It is (still) me though. And more then ever.
 

programmer_guy

True Ex-Scientologist
Personally, I don't think TR's/Comm Course or some such are hypnotically evil or what (I've done plenty of them over the years), even though how would I know if I was in a hypnotic trance or whatnot? Seriously though, neither sitting with your eyes closed and trying not to fall asleep nor staring at someone in front of you (and trying not to fall asleep, unless they are really pretty/handsome) seems that profound and dangerous for ones mental integrity. Or may be it's just me. It is (still) me though. And more then ever.

I don't think that TRs are particularly something to be really concerned about either.
TRs are a very minor issue, if anything at all.
 

Veda

Sponsor
Referring to "TR 0 -4," all but "OT TR 0" are done with eyes open. (TR-0 is similar to ZaZen or Zen meditation.)

When I first did the "Comm Course," there was no eyes-closed TR-0, there was only TR-0, and it was done for two hours straight, and then it was on to "Bull baiting" and then to "TR-1," etc. My first TR-0 twin was a guy who - at lunch break - followed me out of the Org and to a restaurant, where he sat with me and told me how, in the future, when we're all "OT 8s" (then the top and final OT level), the rest - who remained non-Scientologists - would have to be isolated on an island away from the rest of us. This didn't seem like a good idea to me, and I was glad when he wasn't on the course when I continued with it that afternoon. It took two days, left me fairly impervious to normally unpleasant stimuli for awhile, which was a fairly enjoyable feeling, a tendency not to blink, and to calmly acknowledge people.

I found it to be a positive experience, although, looking back, can see how it "set me up" for deeper involvement.

The most notable Comm Course story, of which I know, is a fellow who did the just released "Hard TRs Course," that this person regarded as an inexpensive means of therapy for his wife (it cost, I think, 35 dollars) and a kind of odd head-trip for himself.

It took about a month, and I think his wife benefited - was more emotionally stable - and he seemed to get a kick out of it too.

This person had the wisdom to recognize that this was probably as good as Scientology was going to get - especially judging by money-spent/potential benefit ratio - and firmly rejected any future involvement with Scientology afterwards.

He ensured this future non-involvement in a novel manner, when he wrote his "Success Story" at the end of the course, describing how (to paraphrase) "Now that I've completed the TRs Course, I'm going to become a leader in the Hare Krishna movement."

The joke wasn't appreciated, and that ended his and his wife's involvement with Scientology.

It seems that simplistic and incomplete descriptions of "TRs" are here to stay.

Descriptions of "TRs" as a conveyance, or means, that can have a positive OR negative application, or result, are almost non-existent.

Those who insist that "TRs" are *always* sinister will never admit that anyone has ever benefited from doing "TRs," or that "TRs" could ever be used in a positive way.

Those who insist that "TRs" are *always* good, will never admit that "TRs" can sometimes be subtly overwhelming and manipulative.

IMO, the cult of Scientology uses everything to serve its ends. "TRs" would not be part of Scientology if they did not serve Scientology's ends. Yet, are "TRs," in themselves, inherently and automatically evil?

Scientology exploits many things. It exploits hope and idealism. Are hope and idealism, in themselves, evil?

Years ago, L. Ron Hubbard Jr. talked about the development of "TRs" (around 1957). Ron Jr., a severe critic of Scientology, didn't seem to think that "TRs" were, in themselves, sinister and evil.

It's a mixed bag, and it's designed that way - the old glue/solvent combination that "gradiently" traps the person.
 

Miss Pert

Silver Meritorious Patron
I did sometimes find myself nodding off during OT TR0 and TR0 but that was nothing compared to the excrutiating pain I would get in my shoulder. It felt as if my whole body weight was hanging from my arm and it was going to be ripped out of the socket any moment. Such a pleasant experience :no:
 

Stat

Gold Meritorious Patron
I did sometimes find myself nodding off during OT TR0 and TR0 but that was nothing compared to the excrutiating pain I would get in my shoulder. It felt as if my whole body weight was hanging from my arm and it was going to be ripped out of the socket any moment. Such a pleasant experience :no:

Wow, while reading your post, I realized I had that too a few times... Funny. Them TR's.....

Great post Veda.
 

Kutta

Silver Meritorious Patron
I guess TR0 was supposed to teach you to sit in the auditor's chair and not react in a shocked, sympathetic, or any other emotional way to the pc. So never laugh at anything funny, or respond to someone expressing grief and so on. Just listen, ack and ask the next question. That way you were not evaluating in any way.

God, that is all so robotic and not human, especially when translated to everyday interactions with people. Just sit there impassively when someone pours their heart out to you, or never laugh at someone's jokes, or express shock, horror, sympathy, anger, fear, love .... you name it. The whole panoply of emotions that make us human was systematically erased from our repertoire of responses to others.

it took me a while after coming out to see that appropriate emotional responses are good, right, human, and make for mutually beneficial relationships with others.

Did I nod off? Undoubtedly. Was it some hypnotic trance? No idea.
 

Stat

Gold Meritorious Patron
I laughed as an auditor a few times, along with the pc/s. We all enjoyed it. May be they didn't catch it on the camera. May be that's why they still trying to recruit me back. Or not. But I hear you, Kutta.
 
This description of this particular technique seems so familiar, anyone who recalls something like this, please email me..

Encyclopedia of Hypnotism by Carla Emery wrote:

The paternal induction style is abrupt, shocking, dictatorial, highly
authoritarian in tone, a domineering technique based on fear. A
paternal-style induction uses a fast, directive induction method with
a cold, unfriendly tone of voice. Ferenczi said that paternal hypnosis
reawakens the hating and fearing attitude learned by a little child
when disciplined by his parents. He said that, in paternal hypnosis,
the subject is motivated by need for "abasement" and for "compliance."
According to psychoanalysts, that need for abasement is an infantile,
erotic, masochistic complex.

Such a subject is in awe of the hypnotist, and submits to the
operator's demands out of fear of him.
...the hypnotist with the imposing exterior, who works by frightening
and startling...[is like] the stern, all-powerful father, to believe
in, to obey, to imitate whom, is the highest ambition of every child...
[hypnosis] consists in the deliberate establishment of conditions
under which the tendency to blind belief and uncritical obedience
present in everyone, but usually kept repressed by the censor (remains
of the infantile-erotic loving and fearing of the parents), may
unconsciously be transferred to the person hypnotizing... (Ferenczi,
Sex in Psychoanalysis,Ch. 2)
[...]

Hypnosis always arouses a childlike state of mind: dependence and
transference. Transference means relating
to the hypnotist as if to a parent figure, hero, or godlike spiritual
leader.

...the hypnotic subject is being directed to assume a state of mind in
which mature discriminations
are excluded and childish dependence upon the hypnotist is encouraged.
As some people are pleased to be in a state where life seems narrowed
down to an easily manageable level of closeness with a powerful
guiding parent, hypnosis is in no danger of extinction... (Kovel, p.
209)

In the midst of World War II, Margaret Estabrook reported, in a
Seattle newspaper, on research which created
an artificial childhood: ...hypnosis is a peculiar relationship
between two people. The hypnotist is a figure of parental authority,
just as a doctor is to a patient, or a teacher to his pupil. Even more
strikingly than in these other relationships, the subject tends to
respond emotionally to the hypnotist in the same manner that he
responded to his own parents in his childhood. In particular,
"parental" commands in the form of suggestions are readily obeyed...
(Margaret Estabrook, 1942, p. 1)
[...]
A hypnotist's use of authority can vary wildly. He can create the
state, then let the subject take full control; training in biofeedback
does that. At the other extreme, the hypnotist uses a totally
authoritarian strategy in which the subject never is expected to have
self-control in the hypnotic state again. Suggested total amnesia for
all events under trance may cause the subject to be consciously
unknowing of their hypnotic relationship. Complete amnesia is not
typical, however, even of deep trance events. Hypnosis, at best, is a
special way of encouraging a subject's unconscious mind to activate
its own capacity for healing. At worst, it can be the tool of an
abusive parasitizing of one mind by another for the purpose of
exploitation.



All auditing sessions which "audit out the reactive mind" are entered into with the pre-learned "truth that Hub. is the only one ever to be able to control this reactive mind...this mind which is the thing that denies you control and self determinism can only be controlled by hubbard. You must obey his auditor. You do not question the process except to find out better how to follow commands. The part of your mind which may consider that it is *in control* is therefore willingly relinquished. How more hypnotic can it get?
TRs were developed to get people to follow auditing commands. I learned that on the Comm course. The person is drilled on just doing what is asked and not doing anything else.
 

FinallyMe

Silver Meritorious Patron
After reading this thread, I'm not sure now. While doing OT TR0 once, I experienced the same thing that I regularly experienced as a child during the night - I could fly around the vicinity, being sure to duck the electrical wires, and see very well -- except that it wasn't very light. I loved that I could "fly" again, but was never able to duplicate the experience. This was the same feeling I got after a very early session, while walking with my auditor to the examiner. I had never heard of "exteriorization" so I didn't say anything to the examiner about the experience, but I definitely was, while wide awake, and since it felt the same, I figure that I was exterior while on OT TR0. I don't think it was a trance, but I don't have a "trance" experience to compare it with.
 

Arthur Dent

Silver Meritorious Patron
I nodded off reading this thread! :D
:lol::lol:

Have you ever experienced "nodding off" during TR-0?

.......(most of post eliminated for brevity)

Another old guy called me with an interesting tale that has yet to be checked out... he said when Hubbard was student at George Washington University.. the reason he got such bad grades was that he never attended many classes, because he had gotten incarcerated at St Elizabeth's Mental Hospital in Washington DC. where he may have received Electroconvulsive shock therapy, and developed his distaste for it

And it was yet another telephone call from another very old fellow, who claimed to have been in the Navy hospital with Hubbard. He said that a psychiatric clinician had been passing around his research paper... and that Hubbard took a copy with him when he left and used THAT to write Dianetics.

That clinician turned out to be the head of psychiatry in UK, Dr William Sargant. Dr Sargant published HIS book based on his original paper stolen by hubbard, in 1955. Those ex members that I have enticed to read Dr William Sargant's "Battle for the MInd" have all told me the same thing.. Holy smoke arnie, the topics in DIanetics are the same, but the words got rewritten and changed to Hubbard's own terms...

ALL Scientologists have experienced what hubbard calls "boil off" - or nodding off during TR0...
That IS AN EXACT AND INCONTROVERTABLE MARKER FOR ATTAINING A DEEP HYPNOTIC STATE.

There is NOTHING wrong with hypnosis, I do not seek to demonize it. Hypnosis and trance states are VERY pleasant.. and we all know how pleasant they are.. however, the use of hypnosis is regulated by various laws - that is why Scientology, in fact, is already BANNED.. and why when I'd bring up hypnosis ten years ago, the old ARS newsgroup would go nutz with screeching from OSA's thought controllers...

So we have here an illegal pc and plagerism?? Yikes!:omg:

Oh, I see what you're getting at. Trying to get these kids on ESMB to focus on anything is like trying to herd cats. I sometimes think the whole crew has ADD or sumthin'.
................................................

PINK SHEET
TM 24 HRS.​

What is observed: ESMBers dramatizing ADD
Assignment:

All ESMBers are to print out this thread and hang it upside down
on a wall and do 2 hours of Blinkless TRO on it to a Supervisor Pass or to a hypnotic trance whichever is achieved first.

Please sent your attestation of completion directly to your nearest AO.
 
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